Damaged: A Violated Trust (Secrets) Read Online Free PDF Page B

tell, she is everyone’s very best friend.
    As I read in a book once, this girl is so sweet that sugar wouldn’t melt in her mouth. The homecoming queen election posters plastered all over the school bore testimony to her vast popularity. It seems Emery has Mitchell High in the palm of her perfectly manicured hand. And, really, she can have all that. I just wish she’d leave the boy with me.
    I was so obsessed with fantasizing about Harris Stephens that the afternoon went by in a hazy blur. This is unfortunate considering how much I’d been looking forward to art class right after lunch. As I walk home from school, all I can remember from art is that a couple of kids — Poppie and Zach I think their names were — seemed fairly nice, like potential friend material. But I was so smitten by Harris that I can’t even remember what Poppie and Zach looked like.
    On my second day of school, I’m surprised Buck is still hanging around me, still acting like we’re friends … or is it family? As a result I end up sitting at his friends’ table again. And this time Harris Stephens actually looks my way.
    “Are you new?” he asks.
    Emery laughs. “Don’t you remember her from yesterday?”
    He shrugs, eying me carefully. “Not really.” “
    That’s Haley McLean.”
    I’m surprised she remembers my name, but then that’s kind of like her job I suppose. “That’s okay,” I tell Harris. “I’m not really very memorable.”
    He tilts his head to one side. “I wouldn’t say that.”
    Now I laugh.
    “Harris is terrible at remembering faces,” Emery tells me in a confidential tone. “I think he has some kind of disorder.”
    “I do not,” he shoots back. “It’s just that I’m not obsessed with knowing everyone and their great-aunt Betty in this entire school.” He jerks his thumb at Emery. “Because I, unlike some people, am not running for anything.”
    “Oh, Harris.” She makes a pout.
    “So where are you from, Haley?” Harris asks. I think he’s only giving me attention to irritate Emery, but I don’t mind and I tell him Oregon.
    “I’ve been up there before,” he says with enthusiasm. “What a great place. I wouldn’t mind living there.”
    Now I start to go on about how great it is, talking like I’m head of the Oregon tourist department (is there such a thing?), but Harris still seems really interested. He even talks about the colleges up there, mentioning how they’ve had some pretty hot football teams.
    I’m so nervous that it’s hard to eat my lunch, but I pretend to … and I pretend I’m not nervous either.
    “So what are you into, Haley?”
    I just stare at him, thinking, I’d like to be into you, but there’s no way I would say something so lame. “Oh, art and music.”
    “Music?” He looks interested. “What kind?”
    “I play guitar, write songs, mostly for myself.”
    “I’ll bet you hope to become the next Taylor Swift,” Saundra Ketchum spouts, and everyone laughs like this is a great joke. Saundra is Emery’s best friend, the real one, but she strikes me as an insecure snob, and of all the kids at this table, I probably like her the least. But hearing her take a jab at me is a good reminder that despite Buck’s best efforts, I do not belong here.
    “I actually like Taylor Swift,” I tell Saundra.
    This just makes her laugh harder.
    “You know, I like Taylor Swift too.”
    Now everyone looks at Harris like he’s just sprouted a second head.
    “I do,” he argues. “She’s talented.”
    “You know, I kind of like her too,” Emery admits.
    Saundra lets out a groan. “Give me a break.”
    “You can laugh at Taylor Swift if you want to,” I say. “She probably laughs all the way to the bank.”
    Several of them are arguing now — is Taylor Swift really talented or is she a geek? But Harris turns back to me. “What kind of music do you write and play?”
    I shrug. “I’m not sure it’s a real genre, but I suppose it’s a mix of folk and R & B and